Why elephants dont get cancer

psuedogene

A DNA segment very similar to a real gene but which does not yield a functional product; a DNA segment that formerly functioned as a gene but has become inactivated in a particular species because of mutation. -thought to be pointless retroRNA

retrogene

A functional gene that appears to be derived from a reverse-transcribed RNA

TP53

Tumor suppressor gene that controls cell division and apoptosis; gene that produces p53 protein Gene that initiates repair of DNA Commonly mutated in cancer

Li-Fraumeni syndrome

a condition caused by a germline mutation in tumor suppressor gene p53; females with this syndrome will almost certainly develop cancer, and males are very likely to develop cancer.

yes, p53 is a transcription factor that promotes the transcription of p21 to stop the cell cycle in damaged cells

are p21 and p53 connected

the more radiation, the elephant p21 amount continues to go up drastically but in humans it begins to plateus faster because we only have 2 alleles

difference in p21 expression between humans and elephants

no they are not correlated. elephants have the longest lifespan and they are the least likely to get cancer and are the largest

does cancer have to do with lifespan or cells in this study

the amount of p53 drastically goes up the more radiation there is, because there is more DNA damaage

how does radiation affect p53 in human cells

not as much, there is some initial increase but then the amount stays the same even though the DNA damage increases, most likely not connected to DNA repair

how does retro9 affect p53

19

how many pseudogenes do elephants have

40

how many tp53 alleles do elephants have

cancer is less in elephants because they have more p53 alleles so even if one or two is mutated in their long lifetime they have others to make p53 and encourage apoptosis

relationship between alleles and p53 expression and cancer amount

DNA damage (it stops the cell cycle and promotes apoptosis)

what does TP53 respond to

because when the cells get damated, p53 will be triggered faster and p21 will in response, p21 will then inhibit cyclins EA and B and stop the cell cycle from progressing, preventing the cell from keeping a mutation that get passed on. humans can do this but because they only have 2 alleles, more of those mutations will be able to get past the p21 production

why is the mutation rate in elephants 2 fold less than humans

to highlight the relationship between allele amount and cancer. the LFS patients all have cancer a ton wherease it was almost never seen in elephants

why were li fraumeni syndrome patients included in the study

because both the larger number of cells and lifespan increase in length should cause more cancer based on how mutations work

why were mass and life span both variables for animal cancer?

they have longer pregnancies and reproductive cycles so they would need to make sure they stayed alive long enough to grow their population otherwise they would go extincr

why would elephants need to have less cancer